She is Peculiar, that Alice
by Dancingvictoria
Summary: Alice has returned to Wonderland for the third  and last time.


The best people are bonkers—completely mad. They're irrational and imaginative. They think up six impossible things before breakfast and twelve more before their supper. Those people do not care what others think of them; instead they try to find out _why. _Those that are mad are thoughtful and intellectual. Alice Kingsley was like that. She used to dream of a place called Wonderland. It was a place with singing flowers, Jabberwalkey's, rabbits wearing waistcoats, cats that smile then disappear, and a peculiar Mad Hatter. Alice had once forgotten all about Wonderland. She had mostly forgotten all about it except for the only person that had made her feel accepted.

She had visited Wonderland many times—both in dreams and in life. Wonderland soon became a part of her. As a child, she would cry after she awoke from her nightmares of the Red Queen. When Alice grew older, she found it hard to decipher what was real and what wasn't. Her mother called her odd; her father called her extraordinary. Her father was the only person of her childhood that thought that Alice wasn't completely strange. Alice had once tried writing poetry to try to settle her insane thoughts. Rather than lessening, her thoughts grew. Words, thoughts, laughs, and tears circled throughout her mind constantly.

"_Mad"_

"_Bonkers"_

"_Stupid girl"_

"_Whoooooooooo are youuuuuuuuuuuuuu?"_

"_You're hardly Alice"_

By the time Alice turned fifteen, her father had passed away. Alice's mother, though still grieving, would have a hard time dealing with Alice's, err, _eccentric _mind. On Alice's sixteenth birthday, Alice had a breakdown. Her thoughts and dreams had turned her so bonkers that she lashed out on her mother. The day after, she was sent to an asylum and stayed there for two years.

The second time she visited Wonderland was when she was nineteen. Wonderland was close to ruins—towns had been burned and all of Wonderland was being corrupted by the Red Queen. Alice was sent to Wonderland to save it and give the crown back to the White Queen. She succeeded, but had to face reality. She went back to her family and continued her father business for a very long time. Until now.

The last time Alice visited Wonderland was not by accident. Alice was thirty when she visited Wonderland for the third and last time. The last thing that she remembered before she came to Wonderland was a bright light and driving into an asphalt hole. When she woke up, she was not surrounded by the room filled with doors as she vaguely remembered from her first two visits. She was in a flower field. Alice swore that she heard the flowers speaking.

"_Alice is back!"_

"_Is it truly her?"_

"_Yes, Tiger-Lily, I do believe it is."_

Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a minute: it quite seemed to take her breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only went on waving about, Alice spoke for the first time, in a timid voice - almost in a whisper. "Can all the flowers talk?"

"As well as you can, my dear," said the Rose, waving her leaves and gesturing the girl.

Just then, she heard the flowers gasp as they were being separated.

"_How dare you!"_

"_Get back you, you Mad Man!"_

Alice heard a deep, raspy chuckle as a man with orange hair and a green suit came out. Atop his ginger hair sat a worn out hat. When he saw the young girl, the man stopped in his tracks. Alice didn't know why, but this man was very familiar. Almost as if he was from a dream…

"Hatter!" She gasped and ran forward. The Hatter embraced the girl with another lighthearted laugh.

"Oh, I've missed you so, Alice," he said. Alice nodded into the Hatter's dirty waistcoat.

"I've missed you too, Hatter." Alice let go and looked at her old friend, a grin on her face. The Hatter mirrored her with a smile equally as big.

"Why, you've grown!" He exclaimed.

Alice shrugged, "I haven't had anything to drink lately. There's no telling what shall become of me this time."

The Hatter's eyebrows rose, "You didn't know? You're staying now. You can't go back, Alice."

"Oh, but who said that I am leaving?"

The Hatter smiled and took Alice's hand. "Then you have some old friends to meet again."

Alice squeezed his hand, "Why, I'd be glad to."

Hatter looked at Alice. She seemed…different. Freer and less curious as she had been in the past. Of course, he couldn't make assumptions. She could still be as curious as he was mad.

She was staying in Wonderland now. That was all that mattered.


End file.
